


Lost in the Dark of Our Hearts

by objectlesson



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Boot Worship, Eventual Romance, First Time, Internalized Homophobia, Light BDSM, M/M, Nipple Play, Period-Typical Homophobia, Power Dynamics, Power Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 21:57:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16841191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: Napoleon grows a moustache and chops wood and wears an unbuttoned flannel and looks even more like a Tom of Finland man the he usually does and Illya does not take it well. Until he does.





	Lost in the Dark of Our Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Oh wow its been awhile since I wrote about these guys! I was out running in the wilderness one day and felt inspired by the idea of Napoleon leaning into the Tom of Finland look he has going on and then I imagined him with an axe and it was downhill from there. I might have been inspired by Henry Cavill's facial hair. I recommend googling Tom of Finland art to see what I mean because it's mentioned a lot of times in this story! Title from the LP song "Into the Wild." Thank you to my lovely beta, for revisiting the fandom we met in!!!! I'm so glad you're still around having adventures with me.

The basement smells like leather and plastic and sweat and something else organic, something throat-catchingly bitter. Napoleon fumbles for the lights, and Illya stands frozen with his hackles up, his knuckles tight around his pistol, somehow distantly aware that he’s stumbled upon something he's not ready for. _A trap_ , his body screams, but he knows it’s something more sordid and personal than that. 

“Aaaaand, we’re in a sex dungeon. Brilliant,” Napoleon announces flatly once he’s found the switch, the dim light casting the room in a low, tawdry glow. Illya’s mouth feels dry yet nearly frothing, like he’s rabid, like he's about to be sick, so he spits on the floor, which is hardwood mahogany, not the stained cement he imagined a place like this to have. His spit glistens up at him as he blinks. “Mr. Abendroth might have been a pervert, but at least he had exceptional taste,” Napoleon drawls, using the silencer on his gun to gesture at the art on the walls, the place where Illya has been trying very hard not to look. 

He’s not sure if Napoleon is making a joke or not; it’s a common state of being that he struggles with, not _knowing_ if Napoleon is passing judgment or including himself in the net he casts when he talks about homosexuals. Illya lacks the language to ask, and on top of that, he's not sure he really wants to know the answer. The entirety of it makes him uncomfortable, and his desire to prod into Napoleon’s darkest recesses is not something he wants to pursue the origin of. He fears what he might find. 

Napoleon pulls back a heavy black velvet curtain, revealing a metal and leather swing of some kind behind it. “Don’t...don’t _touch,_ you don’t know—”

“Oh, Peril, are you worried I’ll catch something? Perhaps we need to review how venereal diseases are actually transmitted...unless you’re worried the whole _condition_ can be caught,” Napoleon muses, stepping closer to the wall, rubbing his fingers along the edge of a silver frame. “Too bad I’m no longer in the art-reselling business, these are authentic. Gorgeous.”

If there's irony in his voice, Illya can’t detect it. “Art reselling was not _business_ for you _,”_ he snaps at Napoleon, hands sweaty and cold where he’s still clutching metal, even though it’s become quite clear that Abendroth has already fled the scene, that U.N.C.L.E. has hit another dead end in his pursuit, that there's no need to have their guns drawn. 

“Business is _business,_ it doesn't change if theft is involved. A thief is a businessman,” Napoleon counters lightly, fetching a silk kerchief from his waistcoat pocket to wipe his prints from the glass of the picture he’s examining wistfully. 

Illya, in spite of himself, drags his gaze to the pictures. His eyes have adjusted to the low light, he can make out the subject matter now, and as much as he doesn't want to look closely, he can’t help it, throat thick and cheeks hot. There are photos, closeups of male genitalia so abstract and tightly cropped that they're almost unrecognizable, appearing instead like landscapes, like driftwood, and it’s only when he narrows his eyes and allows them to go out of focus that he sees them for what they truly are: muscular bodies tied up in artful rope patterns, in sailor’s knots, men wearing shiny latex, masks covering their faces. But Napoleon doesn’t seem interested in the photographs, he's focusing on a series of detailed graphite drawings. 

Feeling nauseated and shaky, Illya steps closer, compelled to look. “What are these? They are valuable?” he asks, voice coming out harsher than he means for it to. Napoleon will needle him about this later, remind him of his _intolerance,_ his _discomfort_ , like they’re windows into something insidious underneath. 

“Tom of Finland is the artist and, _yes,_ quite valuable. At least in certain communities. Can’t quite say he has mainstream appeal, though,” Napoleon explains, eyes wide and glistening, brow furrowed as he moves from one piece to another, studying them closely. 

Illya follows. The drawings rarely feature less than three men at a time, usually more than that, all of them huge, muscular, heavily mustached leather-clad cops or soldiers, their comically huge packages straining against skin-tight uniform pants. His eyes sting, plastered open as they take in the sight of so many carefully, lovingly wrought bodies. Bodies prostrate on the floor to lick boots, bodies pressed flush, veins popping, asses presented, split like stone fruit, eyes closed in bliss. It’s all disgusting, and yet he still can’t look away. He and Napoleon walk in silence, dress shoes clicking on the wooden floor as they stare at the walls, acting like two aristocrats at an art gallery, not two men holding guns in a homosexual T.H.R.U.S.H. scientist’s sex dungeon. 

They come to a small drawing of a single man sitting on a bench, his legs spread and shirt unbuttoned, two other men sitting on either side of him with their heads bent, sucking on his enormous nipples, a bastardized reimagining of the Madonna and Child, and it’s at this moment that it all becomes too much for Illya, who’s stomach flips with a terrible, betraying, heat-turned sickness. “This is not art,” he spits out, tearing his eyes away. “It’s _filth.”_

_“_ Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Napoleon assures him, nonplussed and mildly _amused_ as he shoots a crisp, irritating grin in Illya’s direction. 

The smugness and the tilt of his jawline make him look like one of the men in the drawings, and without thinking of how it might be read save for as an insult to Napoleon’s vanity, Illya points at the wall and announces, “You _would_ like these...they look like you.” 

And there are so many reactions he would expect from Napoleon before this. He anticipated a quip, a retaliation, sarcasm sharp on either end like everything else Napoleon says, words too slippery and burning to touch without getting hurt. But that’s not what happens.

Napoleon looks _shocked,_ eyes suddenly flashing, lips parting around an inaudible gasp as he reels back. As always, he recovers quickly, and his impassive cold exterior is back up, even if there’s something slightly and indescribably changed about it. He looks… _delighted,_ perhaps, an odd, scheming subtly to the shape of his mouth as he regards Illya like he just got down on his knees and confessed. 

Illya doesn’t know what he implied in saying what he said, but he’s about to scoff and backpedal when Napoleon places his hand over his own chest, fingers fanned out. Illya imagines the steady, perpetually unaffected thud of his heart beneath his palm. “Well, _thank you._ Tom of Finland’s subjects are intended to be the pinnacle, the _platonic ideal_ , of masculine beauty. Quite the compliment, Peril.” 

“Maybe to _you_ , Cowboy,” Illya snaps, turning on his heel, dizzy and sick of the salty, dead scent of leather. He needs to get out of this place. “But not to me.” 

—-

Illya starts to have scattered nightmares. He’ll wake up sweat-soaked and trembling, his mind a hazy mess of broad, hairy chests and white teeth and blunt nails and crushing arm muscles. Ghost sensations, the sound of slapping skin, the scrub of facial hair on the insides of his thighs. The cloying scent of leather, the sweaty, horrid feel of latex against his skin. Men everywhere, encroaching closer in the dim, hazy back rooms of San Francisco dive bars. Shining flesh and rough hands. 

On stumbling feet, he’ll end up dizzy in the bathroom, rinsing his mouth out with water, panting and trying to forget. He’s not a homophobe, he’s not like those other men in the KGB, the ones who would stalk through the alleyways in Moscow looking for men on their knees to throw bottles and scream obscenities at. The kind of man who would kill another man for looking at him the wrong way. He’s not like that, he never has been, it makes him _sick_ to even think about that sort of thing. 

But it also makes him sick to think about the pictures on the walls in the basement, all those tangles of flesh, men sandwiched together and holding each other down, splitting each other apart. So many of them, a mess of skin and hair and sweat.

And often in these late-night moments, when he’s bending over the sink and pressing his half-hard cock into the biting chill of its porcelain edge to will the blood away, he’ll think of Napoleon. Leaning into picture frames and licking his lips, eyes soft like he isn’t shocked in the least by those obscene images, the shiny leather and perspiration-slick skin, the mouths and the mustaches and the bulges. Like he’s been there or at least thought of being there. Wants to be there. 

Illya swallows bile and tries not to think about that, either. 

There are things he does not want to know about Napoleon Solo. 

—-

U.N.C.L.E. catches wind that Abendroth and a team of T.H.R.U.S.H. bomb specialists are heading to _California_ , of all places, camping in the woods that eventually give way to Oregon, untraceable in the remote wilderness. Waverly suspects they’re looking to test some sort of weapon, so he sends Gaby and Illya out in a private jet to investigate. They’re undercover as a Russian botanist and his field assistant, and since Napoleon is tracking one of Abendroth’s associates somewhere in Los Angeles on a lead, there’s no need for him to accompany them out to the middle of nowhere. 

It’s a relief, really, as Illya was dreading their inevitable assignment to join Napoleon once the lead checked out. Now, he doesn't have to see or think about him for at least a week. It’ll just be earth under his boots, the sound of foliage rustling in the wind, hard manual labor, and little contact with the outside world. It’s what he needs: silence and sweat and _space,_ away from the city and its troublesome complexities, away from _Napoleon_ and his incessant _game._ The way he says things without meaning them and means things without saying them. It’s infuriating, and it gets under Illya’s skin like the smell of leather, the stick of latex, the soft smudge of graphite on a page.

He and Gaby are on very friendly, professional terms. There was a period of time after Rome and during Istanbul when Illya realized how much he was in love with the idea of her without actually being in love with her at all. Like every woman Illya has ever been hung up on, he's capable of getting as far as it takes to care for her, to imagine a future with her, to enjoy the smell of her perfume before she tries to kiss him and throws him into a dreadful panic because that part—and everything that’s supposed to follow—is never worked into the fabric of his fantasies. Sex is fine, and so is love, but those things hand in hand are isolating for a man like Illya, a man who’s very good at killing and lying and protecting but not much else. Luckily for him, Gaby pretty much feels the same way, so Napoleon now refers to them fondly as the Android Heart Twins because he seems to doubt their ability to feel authentic emotions at all. Illya has his doubts about Napoleon, too, so it seems fair. 

Gaby is tolerable if not pleasant company on their backpacking trip through the very top of California in search of T.H.R.U.S.H. agents. They spend the first night struggling to start a fire and reviewing the details of their covers over a bottle of shared vodka. Gaby drinks the majority of it, mixing it first with cranberry juice before resorting to throwing it back straight in searing mouthfuls, and Illya would be worried if he hadn’t spent the first year of their partnership watching her drink men twice her size under the table with nothing but a tiny headache in the morning. “Do you miss him yet?” she asks at some point, rubbing her slippers together as she stretches out on the sleeping bag she dragged from her tent to the fireside, face illuminated in flickering red and gold shadows. 

He reaches out and carefully tucks a little bit of flyaway hair behind her ear. “Miss what?” 

“ _Napoleon,_ obviously. It’s strange, without him, no?” she clarifies, wrinkling her nose like she thinks he's crazy. 

He does think it feels strange, actually, to relax into drinking here by the fire with Gaby without worrying about Napoleon coming in shirtless or with shaving cream on his face, spouting some new theory, gesturing with a foamy razor. Illya hasn’t let his guard down, necessarily, but he’s not ready to _fight_ constantly, fists prepared to clench. It’s nice. “I do not miss him,” he tells Gaby certainly, shifting so that their shoulders bump together. “Is nice, just you and me.” 

“No offense,” she says, sipping vodka like it’s water. “But I miss him. You’re so _serious_ all the time...I miss him making you almost cry every second.” 

“I do not _cry,”_ he scoffs, grabbing the vodka bottle from her. “I like the quiet, without Cowboy going on and on about nothing.” 

“Oh, alright,” she snickers. “Shut up, then. Stop going on and on about nothing.” 

He shrugs, and they return to themselves, gazing into the fire, the woods dark and watchful around them. 

—

When Illya awakes to the sound of heavy but careful steps snapping twigs, he lies still, reaches for his gun, and prepares to kill. Surely it’s Abendroth and his Thrushies, sneaking through the wilderness to find them. He listens for more steps, but instead what he hears is Gaby’s shrieking laughter. “Napoleon!” she snorts, and he closes his eyes, thinking, _no. “_ What is this… _lumberjack_ costume? Johnny Appleseed? Paul Bunyan? Just when I thought you could not get more American…Illya is going to _shit_ himself.” 

Illya is not going to shit himself. He might punch Napoleon, though. 

He storms out of the tent, eyes bleary, lips pursed. “What are you _doing_ here, Cowboy?” he snaps, before his voice dries up in his throat. 

Because Napoleon is standing in the middle of their camp, beside the charred remnants of their dead fire, in _blue jeans_ , with a red plaid flannel shirt tucked in and unbuttoned down his chest to display the ditch between his pectorals, which are dusted in curly black hair. 

Most disturbing of all, however, is his _face._ His usually cleanly shaven, smooth, impeccable jawline is dark with stubble, and above his lip is the beginnings of a thick, course mustache. If Napoleon reminded Illya of a Tom of Finland man a week ago, he _certainly does_ now, so much so that the resemblance is unmistakable, dizzying, _stomach-turning._ When he grins, the pure flash of white completes the image, and Illya can think of nothing but putting him on his back and _hitting_ him. Blood on those perfect teeth, on Illya’s knuckles, the last of it warm and metallic. “I’m here on a mission, the same mission as _you,_ Peril. The lead in LA fell through, so I came up to meet the Android Heart Twins and help you track Nazis through the woods.” 

“Did Waverly send you?” Gaby asks, sounding amused as she sits cross-legged at the entrance of her tent, eyes sticky and soft without her usual false lashes. “If he did, we weren't briefed.”

“He did not,” Napoleon admits, dropping onto a stump and sitting with his legs spread lewdly. Illya hates him. “But even if he _did,_ I doubt you would get the message all the way out here. Jesus, do your pen communicators even _work?”_ he asks, gesturing to Illya as if he were wearing the sort of pajamas that might have a breast pocket. The suggestion offends him. 

“They _do not._ Nothing does out here, and I would not _assume_ Waverly wants you on the case at all. You might want to ride back to New York on your fucking horse, Cowboy.” 

Napoleon grins under his mustache. “And leave you two cold creatures alone in the elements? Certainly not. Who will chop your wood? I’m aware that neither of your covers account much for survival skills…hence my appearance. The young southern gentleman you hired to accompany you, chop wood, and tell you which mushrooms are poisonous and whatnot. You know, that type.” 

“Young?” Gaby scoffs, at the same time Illya mumbles, “Chop _wood?”_

Napoleon smirks, unzips his duffle, and reveals the shining edge of an axe that Illya hopes he brains himself with. “Yes, chop wood. _You two_ might have been successfully seduced by the ease of city living, but believe it or not, I’m perfectly capable of using this axe _and_ providing us all with some basic Boy Scout knowledge. Don’t look so _shocked,_ Peril.”

“We have just two tents,” Illya announces, only now remembering. His last-ditch effort at keeping Napoleon at arm’s length, far enough away that he doesn't have to _think_ about any of the things he’s been forced to think about in his dreams. “There’s no room for you, hope you brought your own tent.” 

“He’s right,” Gaby yawns, backing him up. “And _I’m_ not sharing...that wasn’t part of the agreement, part of this mission. If you don’t have a tent, Napoleon or…lumberjack axe boy or whatever we’re supposed to call you, you share with Illya. No negotiation.” 

“Guess we’re sharing tents then, Peril,” Napoleon says cheerily, standing on his thick legs and brushing debris from denim like this whole thing isn’t upsetting Illya to the point of blind, trembling fury. “Perhaps there’s something going on between this scientist and his hired help.” 

Illya thinks of dim rooms and smudged graphite and the crisp folds of a cop’s leather hat and wants to scream. 

—-

As they hike through the northern Californian wilderness, Illya’s quads are working, but his jaw is what’s sore. This is likely because he cannot stop clenching it, grinding his teeth as Napoleon leads the way, hacking at low-hanging tree branches with a godforsaken _machete._ He’s terribly irritating, cutting a broad silhouette ahead of them, striding with the camp of a man who has studied the way machete-wielding wilderness men _actually_ walk, but he can’t execute the nuance with any sort of confidence, so instead, he’s willfully overcompensating, like an actor in a war film set in some comically exotic location. Illya imagines tackling him from behind at least ten or twelve times but manages to hold back. 

They find nothing of importance all day, neither Abendroth nor any distant trace of him, so there isn’t even some small triumph to _show_ for their struggles when they settle in for the night, Napoleon pitching both tents for them as if he has something to prove, Illya kicking logs and finishing off the dregs of last night’s vodka as he broods. It burns in his mouth, and he dreads retiring tonight, trying to squeeze into those tiny quarters with Napoleon by his side, their sweat-smells trapped together and mingling. 

They've shared beds plenty of times before, not to mention spaces tighter than beds, like gutters and cupboards and closets, pressed flush to avoid being detected, guns hot in their hands while they watch marks through keyholes and cracks. But this feels different, somehow. Probably because Napoleon isn’t _supposed_ to be here, was never _meant_ to share this horrid little space with him. He was supposed to have a _break._

The worst moment of the evening is when Napoleon actually _does_ chop wood, popping buttons on his flannel and raising that axe above his head before swinging it down dramatically, reducing a half-rotted stump near their campsite to actual, burnable logs. He’s _incredibly pleased_ with himself as a result and spends the whole evening stalking around with his hatchet slung over his shoulder like something vast and symbolic, as if he’s a rugged model for the Forest Service. Illya is grudgingly grateful for the fire’s warmth but not so much as he’s resentful for everything else. 

As the fire reduces itself to cinders and the chill begins to set in, Illya rubs his thumbs into his jaw and stomps to the tent, where Napoleon is already sprawled out on his back like a panther. He clambers in on all fours and tries to ignore him, but it’s _impossible_ when Napoleon’s lying like that, spread out in an untied flannel robe and nothing else, rubbing his palm thoughtfully over the new beard growth. “Hired help does _not_ wear robe. You sleep in denim if you _actually_ are Boy Scout.”

“Ah, would you like me to change back?” Napoleon asks, raising a brow. He’s holding a mystery novel to his broad chest, wrist soft, and Illya imagines reaching down, grabbing it from him, and ripping it to shreds. He’s impossibly keyed up just being in the same _space_ as him, smelling his sweat, the sharp, spicy bite of it, _tasting it,_ even, the cloying scent something he cannot rid himself of, sticky in his throat. Napoleon is everywhere, inescapable. 

Illya lies down, trying hard to keep his skin from brushing Napoleon’s, his arms folded in a surly cross over his chest. “Don’t change,” he orders, lips flattened into a line. “Just go to sleep.” 

“To _sleep?_ Surely you aren’t tired yet,” Napoleon counters. 

“Perhaps not, but otherwise, we talk, and I do not want to talk. So, good night.”

“Oh, _Peril,_ come on, the night is young. We have all the time in the world.” 

“To sleep.” 

Napoleon rolls his eyes before they climb up the length of Illya’s body critically, making him squirm. “You’re not dressed for sleep, are you? Probably didn't bring anything to sleep _in_ , knowing you…going to get comfortable, then, in your boots? Or would you prefer I get down on my hands and knees and lick them? Is that what you're getting at?” 

Illya suddenly cannot hear or breathe. He goes deaf at the sudden roar of blood in his ears, scalded by the rush of fire that alights him, heats him up from the inside out, makes his scalp prickle. “I... _what?”_ he chokes out, mouth dry. He’s sputtering because Napoleon did not. _Could not._ No one would say such a thing without meaning something else, it was a _joke,_ certainly. 

But Napoleon just looks him dead in the eye and enunciates clearly, “Do you. Want me,” before pausing to wet his full lips with his tongue, eyes black with pupil, “To lick your boots.”

Illya stares. It’s a question, even if it’s not framed as one, and he _knows_ the answer is an emphatic and horrified _no,_ but even still, he can’t make it come out of his own pursed lips. His shock draws his hesitation out, and he just _lies_ there, clutching his clothes and looking astounded while Napoleon regards him, lights in his eyes. He keeps expecting Napoleon to burst out laughing at any moment, tease him for his silence, but instead, he licks his lips again and sits up before getting on all fours. His robe is open, and Illya thinks about all the darkness within as he forces his eyes shut lest he see anything he’s not prepared to. “You do, don’t you,” Napoleon breathes, and it’s only when his actual mouth is actual centimeters away from the filthy boot that Illya’s been _hiking in_ all day that he realizes this is not a joke. 

“What are you doing?!” he snaps, vaulting away and colliding with the side of the tent, nearly taking the whole thing down with him in his effort to wiggle out from under Napoleon Solo and his pink tongue, his wet mouth. “ _What—”_

_“_ Hmm,” Napoleon says, whipping away easily, like he was prepared to be kicked, like he _knew_ Illya wouldn't allow him to do something so dirty. “No, then? You weren’t indelibly... _changed_ from that sex dungeon in San Francisco?” 

“I get tired of your jokes,” Illya grumbles, rolling onto his side so that his back is to Napoleon and he doesn’t have to look him in the eye, calculate how much of that crystal blue is mirth or mocking or most terrifying of all, genuine desire. It can’t be, he thinks. Even if Napoleon _is_ a homosexual in some way or another, he couldn’t…he would never risk coming onto someone like _Illya,_ his partner, a _Russian,_ a man who’s made it clear that he would never be interested in such things. He’s never put Illya in that position on a mission when they were sharing a tent. But then his hand is hot on the back of Illya’s neck for a moment, cuffing him there like one would if one were picking up a kitten, and he says, “S’alright, Peril. You don’t have to think about it, you just _can.”_

Illya is so shocked and patronized by the tenderness of it that he leaps away again, gasping, “ _Stop.”_

This must actually get through to Napoleon because he abruptly lets go, reclining back and looking at Ilya like _he’s_ the puzzling one, like _Illya’s_ the one whose behavior doesn't make sense. “Suit yourself,” he mutters then, thumbing over his new mustache and making Illya ache in ways he’ll always be too terrified to name. “The offer stands, however. Sometimes I think what you _really_ want, what you need, even, isn’t _fighting_ men, Peril. Or not _just_ fighting them.” 

“Don’t assume you know what I need,” Illya grits out, eyes burning when he rolls over and shuts them hard, heart pounding, breath coming in and out in staccato draws. He imagines Napoleon on all fours, panting and glistening like the men in the drawings, every muscle bulging, a series of hard curves like marble, everything solid save for his tongue, which would be so, _so_ wet. Leaving a streak in the dust on Illya’s boot. 

His stomach turns, and he's oddly relieved in this moment by how _deeply_ the image disgusts him, repels him. Maybe he isn’t the thing he fears he is, and he thinks of this and holds it close so that he can sleep without nightmares, Napoleon inches away. 

—-

They hike and camp and bicker for two days before they manage to find anything trackable, and even then, there’s no guarantee the fire pit full of ash and the discarded beer bottles surrounding it are from T.H.R.U.S.H. It could be anyone, and Illya’s beginning to go stir-crazy and half-mad without a lifeline to headquarters, without concrete progress, without _room_ from Napoleon and his infernal closeness, the pungent smell of him, increasingly sharp and spicy and male. 

Illya knows he smells, too, even _Gaby_ does. They haven't had a chance to shower properly, and wiping down with water rations and rags only does so much. Illya wouldn't mind much; he’s experienced far worse shoved into cells in Russian prisons undercover or in trenches or in solitary The issue isn’t the smell itself, it’s _Napoleon_ specifically because in the year and a half that they’ve worked cases side by side, _never_ has Ilya witnessed Napoleon anything other than impeccably clean and put together, _even_ if he’s just been captured or tortured or thrown overboard into the sea or trapped in a sewer or something equally grim. Under the layer of superficial grime and blood, he’s still _Napoleon,_ there are still the vestiges of hair gel and cologne _beneath_ whatever else he’s been exposed to. Illya has never had to deal with him like this, Napoleon undiluted and undistilled and rank and _human,_ the raw overwhelm of him without his usual layers of decorum. It’s infuriating; it’s fucking with his head. It feels like a personal offense, a glimpse into what it would be like to be the sort of man who has a sex dungeon in his basement or collects obscene art. A man's flesh without disguise, broken down into its basest elements. 

Illya’s mouth waters sometimes, his cock twitches in the morning when he’s drowsy and half-awake and inhaling without remembering why he should breathe shallowly. His flesh reacts to its mirror, and he doesn’t _want_ that, doesn't want to file it away with the other observations he’s made about himself in regards to this particular topic, so he tries to will it away by deciding the reason it affects him so much is because it’s the smell of his _own_ arousal: the smell in his sleeping bag when he jacks himself off, the smell of his own body trembling and perspiring after an orgasm. He associates these smells with sex, his _own_ sex, so that must be why. 

He’s not sure he believes it entirely, but at least it’s easier to accept than any other possibility. 

Thankfully, the day they find the charred logs and beer bottles is also the day they find a fresh-water spring deep enough to wade into. Gaby drops her duffle, kicks off her shoes, and immediately rounds on them to announce, “I get first shower. I don't care if you look, but know that it’s going to be a thoroughly unladylike display of utter self-indulgence.” She’s already stripping off her shirt, and Illya has seen Gaby in a bra enough times that he hardly registers it as something theoretically titillating, even though the mere idea would have made him blush fiercely, once. 

He flattens out his mouth and inhales to make a quip, but Napoleon beats him to the punch. “Peril and I will head upstream and rinse off. If there’s a sudden warm patch in the water, you’ll know what happened.” 

“Disgusting,” Gaby deadpans, unsnapping her bra, and finally, Illya remembers that he should turn away. 

They make it fifty feet away before Illya announces, “I am _not_ getting in stream with you.” He’s not sure why, but he doesn’t want Gaby to hear him saying something like this; he feels like it’s too revealing, like she’ll find out about Napoleon’s proposition the other night if she witnesses his discomfort, or, worse, she’ll see through his resistance to the stormy mess of confusion underneath. 

“Fine then,” Napoleon says easily, standing to face Illya as he unbuckles his belt and unbuttons his jeans slowly, deliberately. Illya’s gaze catches on the movement of his hands, which are pale and probably not as soft as the last time he remembers touching their palms, which might have been months ago, when wrestling a chess piece out of his fingers in a hotel room in Milan. He hates that he recalls this, hates that he’s staring, dry-mouthed, thinking of how they might be calloused now, rougher after all the wood-chopping and tent-pitching he’s been doing. 

Illya doesn’t want to think about Napoleon’s hands, so he tears his eyes away and stalks off to the water, crouching at the edge to cup his hands in the icy chill of it and bring some up to dab his face. It’s so cold that it stings. He can feel Napoleon behind him, big and broad and blocking out the light, and instinctively he braces for a knee in his back as he announces, “If you push me in, I’ll kill you.” 

“Can you see any leeches? I’d hate to have my blood sucked,” Napoleon says in favor of taunting, and Illya’s stomach lurches at the word _sucked,_ the way it lilts in Napoleon’s American accent, the constants impossibly hard, barbing into him and under his skin. 

“I don’t see anything, but I’m not getting in first. Go and test the water for us, Cowboy.” 

Napoleon is out of his shirt by the time he stands and turns around, and the image hits him like a sucker punch to the gut: the broad, tight stretch of Napoleon’s shoulders, the swells of his pectorals, the coarse hair thick over his heart, long enough that Illya could maybe make a fist in it were he to splay his palm wide, dig his fingers in. Again, he’s thinking of hands, and again, he forces the thought out, mouth dry and heart pounding. 

He watches as Napoleon wades into the water, nipples tightening at the cold, visible perhaps only because Illya’s looking. 

He shuts his eyes and turns away. 

—-

Later, once they’ve both rinsed off and rejoined Gaby, Illya’s thankfully feeling less sticky and awful. It’s perhaps the only relief, however, as he simply _cannot_ shake the image of Napoleon bathing himself in the stream. 

He looked like something in an American wildlife catalog, someone who ought to be selling fishing poles or teaching kids about forest fire safety. Not a _real_ outdoorsman but the billboard-ready, ever-American mockery of one, overblown and absurd and performative and picture-perfect. The Tom of Finland rendering of an outdoorsman, perhaps. 

Illya’s alight with warring, indescribable feelings as he recalls the spectacle, the rivulets of river water coursing down Napoleon’s thick neck, getting caught in the thatch of chest hair: rage, longing, exasperation, amusement, and more longing. For what, he does not know. Reprieve, perhaps, time _alone_ in his tent _without_ the flesh-and-blood version of Tom of Finland artwork within touching distance, reminding him of a world that exists where people actually _choose_ to straddle all these impossible, painful extremes in regards to other men. 

He lets himself into the tent early, while Napoleon and Gaby are still discussing the case details around the fire, and lies there with his eyes scrunched tightly, replaying the haunting image of Napoleon’s hard, pale flesh glistening and wet, getting pinker as he scrubbed it, more golden in the sun. He allows the images to come unhindered, for once, allowing them to wash over him and cloud his mind, to see, _just to see_ , what it does to him. What happens to his body. 

Illya’s feeling feverish and hard and considering taking himself in hand, in _spite_ of the terrible humiliation that would entail when Napoleon pushes his way through the tent flap with a lantern, making him freeze, fist around the waistband of his sweats. Light bounces off the canvas tent siding, and Illya’s jaw clenches at Napoleon’s whisper, voice rough and soft at the same time around the words, “Ms. Teller passed out, so I put her to bed.” 

“I see,” Illya grinds out, freeing his hand discreetly. “I was sleeping.” 

“No, you weren’t,” Napoleon scoffs. “You act like I've never seen the murder machine you become when I _actually_ startle you awake. You're up to something else.” 

Illya’s face colors, and he bites the inside of his cheek before angrily admitting, “ _Trying_ to sleep, then.” 

There’s a heavy, electric pause, and Ilya’s pulse picks up in the absence of anything to bicker about.

“I’m going to ask you something, then,” Napoleon declares, shattering the silence, and Illya _knows_ what's coming next, _knows_ that he's been transparent ever since San Francisco. He just doesn't know what Napoleon actually _sees_ through that transparency. Confusion? Want? Shame? He won’t let himself introspect long enough to press on the wound that’s been festering, he only feels tenderly around the infection with prudent fingers. He knows there’s something insidious motivating him, and he fears whatever it might be, but he has willfully refused to dig any further. Napoleon, who’s chronically meddlesome and a very good spy, _will_ dig. He probably knows worlds more about Illya’s deepest interior than Illya himself, and that frightens him at the same time it makes his stomach turn in a hungry, satisfied lick of heat. Like he _wants_ Napoleon and his blunt, harsh, American perspective to lay him out, pick him apart, _explain_ it all to him. End this mess of fruitless, terrified wondering. 

Maybe that’s why instead of saying _please, don’t,_ he asks, “What?” It sounds desperate, like a prayer.

Napoleon inhales sharply, and the temperature rises in the tent before he clears his throat and begins. “You must know. I’ve made it quite clear, haven't I?” 

Illya sighs and rolls over, needing to see Napoleon's face. Imagining the furrow in his brow and the way that the flame dances in the blue of his eyes _hurts_ when he has the option of seeing the real thing, a reminder of the _reality_ of Napoleon Solo, terrible and human, instead of this illusion of wisdom. He regrets it, though, when his gaze falls on him and he’s wearing nothing but that _robe_ tied loosely around his waist but open over his chest. Illya’s eyes water as he gulps thickly and flatly mumbles, “Spit it out, Cowboy.” Like this is a joke, like Napoleon actually _has_ swallowed something. 

Napoleon blinks, impossibly handsome in the firelight, and purses his lips. Then he says, “I’m the sort of man Abendroth is, you see. Or perhaps not the _exact_ sort of man. I don’t have a dungeon in my apartment, and I _do_ like women quite a lot, while I suspect he doesn’t. Oh, and I’m not working for Nazis. But the rest...that’s something we share.” 

He lets it hang there, refusing to put a word on whatever it is _precisely_ that they share. Illya doesn't know any words for it anyway, beyond those found in textbooks or medical documents or indecency cases, beyond those thrown around in the dark to mean something less than human, the ultimate shame, punishable by death. It’s unspeakable, yet Napoleon’s lying here, close enough that Illya can track the rise and fall of his breath, _saying_ it, without saying it. “I know how you are,” Illya responds, voice much softer than he intends for it to be. “Was it supposed to be secret? You didn’t act like it was.” 

“Oh, I never intended to hide something so intrinsic to my nature from my partners,” Napoleon answers, brow creasing even deeper, eyes flashing under the dark, lovely sweep of his lashes. It’s strange, how soft he looks in this moment. Like carefully shaded graphite, hard lines smudged at the edges. “And I’m not ashamed, I’m only telling you as it’s relevant to my question.” 

“What question?” Illya asks. He feels as if he’s coming apart at the seams, flayed by the fierce, crystalline _knowing_ in the blue of Napoleon’s eyes. Like he’s about to crack him open along his hinges like an oyster and suck out the brine.

“Aren’t you curious?” is what Napoleon asks.

It’s suspended between them, scrubbed raw, dripping blood. Before Illya even has time to contemplate answering honestly, he’s scowling in reflexive defense, cheeks burning as he spits out an emphatic, “ _No.”_

_“_ Really?” Napoleon says, cocking his head, black curls falling across his brow. “Because whether or not you’re aware of it, you’re acting like a _curious_ man. Usually, you see, if men _aren’t_ curious or are _genuinely_ horrified, they try to fight. They don’t stumble around staring and kicking themselves for doing it.”

“I _do not want_ you to lick my boots,” Illya snarls, gathering in tight on himself, shuddering again at the thought. Not wanting that one specific and horrible thing is perhaps the only point he's unwaveringly certain of. “Even if I _was_ curious, that…those things, the art on the walls, the dungeon, the filth, the _depraved—,”_ he chokes, raising his arm to hide his face in the crease of his elbow as his ability to school his reactions deteriorates. “I don’t want that. I don’t care what you do, but I don’t want any part in it.” 

As the words leave his mouth, Illya knows he’s lying. He _does_ want some part of it, or at least his treacherous body does, his heart of hearts. Otherwise, his cock wouldn’t be hard right now, thick and hot against his stomach. And, perhaps even more telling, he _does_ care what Napoleon does. For this is not about other men in general or men like Abendroth or even the art in the dungeon that forced him to think about this in the first place. This is about _Napoleon Solo_ and all the ways in which Illya cannot fathom him, cannot _stand_ him, all because he brings up feelings that Illya doesn’t know what to _do_ with. It’s not Napoleon he’s running from, it’s the way he _feels_ about Napoleon. His own mess of craving and self-loathing and fear and want that Napoleon brings to the surface like a layer of lymph in a blood suspension, translucent and obvious. 

“Fuck, Peril,” Napoleon sighs, shaking his head. “It doesn’t…I don't have to lick your _boots,_ my god, you’re so _rigid_. What do you think this is _like..._ it doesn't have to be a Tom of Finland drawing, with a man. It can be whatever you want.” 

Illya makes a wordless strangled sound and rubs his face into his sleeping bag because this _cannot_ be happening, he _cannot_ be discussing the mechanics of sex with men with Napoleon Solo, whose voice has become reedy and thick with frustration or perhaps something darker, dirtier. He thinks of the drawings, the way they made him feel, the dueling surges of arousal and horror. And then, as the fiber of reality frays and he remembers the men prostrate on the floor with leather heels digging into the deeply concave smalls of their backs, he realizes that he wasn’t imagining stepping on Napoleon’s back. He wasn’t imagining Napoleon under him at all. He was imagining himself feeling small in a way that he never is. Feeling small _under_ Napoleon. 

His stomach turns, and he thinks of his own hot cheek pressed to the floor, of Napoleon’s strong, sure, newly calloused hands rubbing down his sides, thumbing into the crack of his ass, splitting him like in the drawings, examining him. His mouth floods, his cock twitches, and he must be going _mad_ because he's grinding down onto his sleeping bag, and in the lantern light, Napoleon is watching, wetting his lips with his tongue, breathing audibly like there’s no oxygen left in this tent. 

“Jesus,” Napoleon rasps quietly, exhalations coming out rough, uneven. “Illya. Come here.” 

And in spite of all logic or better judgment or the rising tide of incredible shame, Illya _does._ He closes his eyes and shifts across the stretch of space between them, cock so thick and heavy between his legs that he can’t _think_ of anything else, can’t remember why he feared this, why acknowledging it felt like death. “I don't know what I want,” he tells Napoleon, gasping when they touch, knees brushing together before Napoleon cups his hand along the back of his neck just like the other night and pulls him close. This time, he doesn’t push the touch away. He expects it to feel terribly dirty, like plunging head-first into a sea of tar, but it doesn’t. It feels warm, intimate, tender, Napoleon’s breath and heat all around them. 

“It doesn't have to _hurt_ ,” Napoleon reminds him, carefully carding his hand up into his hair, making him shiver. “You absurd, marvelous creature. Always thinking of pain first.” 

And Illya never feels small, but he feels small right now, curled tight, huffing and trembling against Napoleon’s broad chest, a closeness he never anticipated existing in his life. Illya didn’t _know_ that it could be like this, not just with a man or with Napoleon but _ever._ Having his hair stroked seems impossible, something he's long assumed couldn’t happen to a man like him.

“You made it seem—,” he croaks, remembering Napoleon’s proposition, which was decidedly not, _do you want me to put my fingers in your hair?_

“I only suggested as much because I thought you might be more willing if I made you think that _you’d_ thought of it…a way to make me pay for how perverted you think I am.” 

Illya can barely hear him beyond the roaring of blood in his ears, the insistent thud of his own heartbeat. He's close enough to Napoleon that he can smell the whiskey on his breath, the clean, green scent of the stream, his sweat under that, spice and salt and _undeniably_ male, undeniably _Napoleon,_ sharp and stinging. Illya’s mouth waters as he opens it to gasp, and then he’s opening it on Napoleon’s throat, he’s dragging his lips down the shuddering column of it, tongue flicking out to taste salt. 

It should be the filthiest thing he’s ever done. Maybe it is. But it doesn't _feel_ that way, as he does it. It feels pure and remarkable, Napoleon’s breath catching under his open mouth, his pulse speeding up under his lips, and, perhaps most moving, the frantic pounding of his heart as Illya presses his palm over it, nails digging into flesh, his chest hair coarse as it scrubs against him. Napoleon is so still, gasping as Illya touches him with rough, trembling, experimental strokes down the heaving plane of his ribcage to the thick ropes of his obliques, and then back up to his pectoral muscles, which twitch as he razes his nails over a hard nipple. 

He thinks of the most shocking drawing, the man cradling two others to his chest as if he could sustain them, _feed_ them, the ultimate subversion of masculinity, the most astounding and vulnerable thing. Illya’s stomach turns fiercely, and without thinking, he bends his head and affixes his open mouth to Napoleon’s nipple.

He bites down, clutching at Napoleon as he gasps and pushes into the heat of Illya’s mouth. He’s swirling his tongue around the hard nub before sucking hard enough for his cheeks to hollow, his tongue scoured by hair. And finally, _finally,_ this feels dirty. The smell of Napoleon’s skin is _everywhere,_ his whole huge body shuddering, writhing, thrusting in air as if he wants to rub against Illya but is holding back, and something about that makes Illya lose his mind, forget himself. He subconsciously hooks one leg around Napoleon’s and drags him closer, pushing their bodies together in a messy convergence of heat and muscle. He's sucking with his eyes shut, with his teeth in it, and his mouth is so wet and hungry that there’s spit on his chin, Napoleon’s hands still in his hair, tugging it hard, rubbing at his scalp as if urging him on. 

Illya feels like he needs this, like he has needed it for a long time. Like it’s what his mouth and Napoleon's chest were made for, respectively. He wonders if this is something he’d thought about before and dismissed as an expression of rage. Wanting to use his teeth on Napoleon, make him gasp in pain, but really all he wanted was to _taste,_ to suck, to bend his head and pray.

“Fuck,” Napoleon swears at some point, voice wrecked, cock flexing against Illya’s thigh, thick and hard and maddening. “You... _Illya._ Your mouth.”

“You could hurt me,” Illya murmurs against his skin, and he knows that it’s not a proper response, but it’s all he can think of, all his body wants as he rubs his flushed cheek against Napoleon’s chest, lips slick and puffy with saliva. “I would lick _your_ boots.” 

Just saying it makes his hips stutter against Napoleon’s, his cock leak into his sweats. Being so vulnerable, using his mouth for such a filthy, vile, base thing. Worshipping that which he has denied himself because throwing his existence headlong into fear seems to be the only way to ride the massive wave of it. He’s shaking, but so is Napoleon. 

“Jesus Christ,” Napoleon groans, voice scraping out of him. “You want it so badly...need it, don't you? All this time, you thought you were broken, and you just...needed to be held down, have your mouth used, _god,_ Illya, you drive me _insane._ Such a mess,” he blathers, pulling fistfuls of Illya’s hair before rubbing down his flank, shoving his hand into the back of his sweats to squeeze his ass, pull it apart. “Bet you’d come so fast with a cock in your mouth, wouldn't you?” 

It should be a taunt, but he sounds broken as he says it, like it’s his own confession. Illya makes a wordless sound of overwhelm when he hears it, biting at his chest again, tongue out, wet, hungry. _Yes_ , he would come fast like that, choked with his eyes streaming, no choice but to take every inch. He realizes as he moves back to suck Napoleon’s nipple helplessly that it's so much easier to accept wanting Napoleon if he’s being used and fucked and ordered to do so because then it doesn’t feel like his _choice._ He can let it wash over him, let Napoleon take him and not think about what it means. “Please,” he whispers, pulling away so there’s just enough room for a whisper. “Do whatever you want to me.” 

Napoleon curses and rolls Illya onto his back before bracketing his chest with his knees, broad thighs spread lewdly, the heat of his body an infernal, hard-to-touch thing. His robe is open, and Illya can see all of him, his dark pubic hair extending down the insides of his powerful thighs, the muscles jumping and flexing underneath, his abdominals shuddering. And his _cock,_ which is so fucking hard, achinglyso _,_ red and dripping and lewd, the length of it curved like the men in the drawings. Illya’s cheeks are so hot as they’re hollowed out, as Napoleon bears down on him, feeds his cock to Illya without asking him if he’s ready, which is _exactly_ what Illya wants. 

His lips stretch to accommodate the thickness, and it’s hard to breathe, but all of it, _all of it_ is so _unimaginably_ good _,_ being split like this, drool frothing out onto his cheeks, mostly because he can’t _think_ , can’t _worry._ His world is reduced to the taste of Napoleon’s skin and the crushing weight of him on his chest and the scraped, desperate noises he makes as he fucks Illya’s throat, fist in his hair, rough and tender all at once. “Made for this,” Napoleon pants at some point, thumbing tears from the tail of Illya’s eye. “Take me like you need it.” 

_I do_ , Illya would say if he could speak. But all he can do instead is moan around the suffocating length of Napoleon’s cock as Napoleon reaches around behind himself to cup Illya, his palm careful and sure and warm. He pulls on him a few times, agonizingly slowly, like he's just feeling him out, before he starts jacking him off in earnest, grip maddening. Illya loses himself to the mess of sensations, having his mouth filled, Napoleon touching him, the smell of sweat and skin and saliva and fire, and that’s how he comes, gasping around the searing thickness while he bucks, spilling over Napoleon’s fist. 

Napoleon follows soon after, head tilted back to expose the lovely pale ripple of his throat, stubble glistening in perspiration that shimmers in the flickering lantern light. He shoots off into Illya’s ruined mouth, salty-bitter and with a cut-off gasp, and then he pulls so that the remainder lands on Illya’s face, across his cheek, his chin, burning and wet, the filthiest baptism. 

Illya lies there panting as Napoleon climbs off, eyes shut, chest heaving. He feels Napoleon settle beside him and carefully cradle his face between his palms, thumbing away his tears, the come he painted him in. “I would like very much to kiss you,” he whispers once he’s wiped the mess away, breath close, warm. “Will you allow me that?” 

He makes it sound like a kiss is higher stakes than whatever else they’ve just done, and Illya’s reminded again that he doesn’t know the rules here, he has no experience with what it means for two men to touch. He can’t make himself speak, so he reaches up with a trembling hand and curls his fingers into Napoleon’s sweat-damp hair, pulling him down. 

It’s sloppy and hungry and tastes of come and whiskey, and Illya feels like he could fall into this well and never come back from it. 

All this time, Illya thought kissing a man was close to _impossible,_ that maybe they bent each other over furniture and fucked amid fighting, but this, _this_ wasn’t something that happened except for in the dark, unspoken and shameful, and never for men like him. But as he groans into Napoleon’s mouth, sucking on his tongue since Napoleon keeps pushing it into him like it belongs there, it feels like there’s no room for shame. There’s no room for anything, just this, the faint whiff of kerosene as the lantern burns on, and Illya’s upper lip and chin getting scrubbed more and more raw from Napoleon’s facial hair, the most wonderful and distant burn. 

They roll around together and touch and touch, hands splayed wide and curious like artists’ hands, feeling out the ditches and bones and planes and pulses. Illya smoothes over Napoleon’s repeatedly, digging his thumbs into the divots between his deltoids, his biceps, his quads. Learning the build of him and mapping him out like the stars. He keeps waiting to be disgusted by some facet of his anatomy, stunned out of the spell that Napoleon has cast and coming to his senses, but maybe these _are_ his senses. Maybe the reason he didn’t dig deeper was because he was afraid of finding out exactly how wonderful it feels to hold the terrible bulk of Napoleon Solo flush, to kiss him. 

—-

The lantern burns out, and in the darkness, Napoleon brushes his lips over Illya’s temple and murmurs, “If I stop to get us a drink of water, will you panic and hit me?” 

“No,” he replies, blinking slowly, eyes adjusting to the new light. “I will wait for you to come back.” 

Napoleon lets out a long sigh. “You are something else, Peril.” 

Later, once they’ve split an entire canteen, Napoleon rubs his hand over his face, his movements nothing but subtle flashes in the moonlight. “Fucking _Christ,_ I hate this mustache, I keep getting little hairs in my mouth...cannot _wait_ to get back to civilization and shave it.” 

“Oh, so you are not Mr. Nature Man after all,” Illya says around a yawn. “Did you invent this cover _just_ so you could seduce me?” 

“Absolutely. Took the lead down in LA even though I knew it was a dead end simply so I would have time to grow this infernal thing out.” 

“Cowboy,” is all he can think to say, stunned that Napoleon would put so much _time_ and effort and thought into such a thing. He’s not sure why it surprises him when he _knows_ how Napoleon works, the layers one must peel back to find anything that isn’t premeditated. “You love to act. Big movie star...probably had a good time in LA.” 

“It wasn't _acting_ , it was…enhancement, I suppose. See, I heard you, back in San Francisco. When you _told_ me that I looked like the men in the drawings, don't you remember? And I thought, what can I do to really _become_ one?” 

“But,” Illya reminds him, wrinkling his nose, mouth suddenly tasting bitter. “I hated those...made me sick.” 

“Just the right sort of sick,” Napoleon argues. “It was a gamble, yes. I thought, ‘If I can make him picture me like those men, just like that, on my stomach, on a motorbike, chopping wood, in uniform, licking boots…then perhaps he’ll realize I’d _do_ that, for him.’” 

Illya’s head is spinning, so he flattens out and stares at the ceiling, imagining the massive stretch of the night sky above them. “You didn't need to _force_ me to look,” he admits. “I always look at you, always. It is very annoying.” 

“Oh, I’m quite aware,” Napoleon says slyly, creeping closer in the shadows before affixing his mouth to Illya’s throat and making him shiver. He sucks a mark there, low enough that it can be easily hidden by a turtle neck, and once he's done, Illya pushes his fingers into it, delighting in the sting. 

“So,” he murmurs, rubbing into his pulse, “what do we do now? How...how does...if I want this more than just tonight?” His voice gets thick as he says it, and there’s a momentary spike of panic in his chest as he realizes that he doesn’t _know_ if this is something that can happen again, if they’re allowed more than a single night of secrecy, a wild meeting of flesh only to be buried, forgotten, longed for ever after. But Napoleon crowds him and kisses him hard, holding his cheeks between his palms like he doesn't want him to go anywhere, like he’d prefer for him to stay here forever, marked and swollen. 

“We continue on,” Napoleon tells him, voice snagged and soft and wet between kisses. “I show you how to get on your knees. How to bend in half and take me. How to hide. Everything.” Illya nods, gripping his shoulders, thinking of the drawings and the layer of fantasy and fear over them, as if there’s nothing for men like this but cops and batons and the mere _dream_ of airbrushed perfection once the reality is unattainable. But as if Napoleon can read his mind, he thumbs over the furrow in his brow and promises, “The drawings…they were a prompt, not a script, Peril. We take it from here now.” 

Illya nods because he cannot speak, kissing him instead, hooking one leg around Napoleon’s back and pulling him flush so that their hips knock and grind together, bone against bone, like flint and wood, the beginnings of a fire, a dry wheat field coming alive with flame. 


End file.
